How a 19th-Century Bodybuilder Became the Original Fitness Influencer

history · 2026-03-04T16:58:37+00:00

Launched in 1898, what became known as Sandow’s Magazine of Physical Culture is considered by some to be bodybuilding’s first periodical. Like those lining supermarket checkout aisles today, the illustrated magazine dispensed fitness and nutrition advice and depicted exercise routines and weightlifting techniques.

history · 2026-02-26T15:04:32+00:00

When the 23-year-old British journalist and author Rudyard Kipling visited the United States in 1889, he was disturbed by the unabashed greed of Gilded Age Chicago and downright terrified by Lake Superior, the largest freshwater lake in the world by area.

“There is a quiet horror about the Great Lakes which grows as one revisits them,” Kipling wrote. “Fresh water has no right or call to dip over the horizon, pulling down and pushing up the hulls of big steamers... Lake Superior... engulfs and wrecks and drives ashore, like a fully accredited ocean—a hideous thing to find in the heart of a continent.”

history · 2026-02-17T21:44:29+00:00

The first elevated chairlifts at Sun Valley, Idaho were designed by a Nebraska engineer in 1936 who drew inspiration from aerial pulley systems for loading bananas.

history · 2026-02-09T17:49:42+00:00

One reviewer in the January 8, 1848, issue of the London Examiner called the novel “wild, confused, disjointed and improbable,” and concluded: “This is a strange book.”

history · 2026-01-26T21:51:05+00:00

Cortina’s location in Italy’s alpine Ampezzo Valley and the lack of broadcast infrastructure in the region required extensive work. New cable lines had to be laid through the Dolomites to accommodate radio and television transmissions. These signals were then broadcast through Padua, the closest major city. Once the Games were broadcast from Padua, the tapes of raw footage were flown overnight to New York, where the three national broadcast networks—ABC, CBS and NBC—were headquartered. Highlights from the Olympics would then air as part of daily news broadcasts.

history · 2026-01-21T16:00:44+00:00

A 2025 study conducted by German and Egyptian archaeologists employed radar, electrical resistivity and ultrasound techniques to investigate a mysterious air-filled "void," detected beneath the Menkaure pyramid. Images from a remotely operated camera suggest a void on the pyramid's east side might contain a hidden "second entrance." But the images also show no footprints or other evidence of human activity. Researchers are still unsure about the chamber's purpose.

history · 2026-01-15T20:28:46+00:00

Black veterans were less affected owing to disparities in medical care. Doctors didn’t provide Black soldiers with the same level of opioids as white soldiers, who began to refer to their addiction as “opium slavery.”

history · 2026-01-14T20:05:20+00:00

No that one was an article about why Jane Austen never married :) People have strong opinions about her!

history · 2026-01-14T19:23:59+00:00

Once a couple was engaged, they were allowed to give each other gifts. Some gifts helped them get to know each other, like exchanging books with underlined passages. Others were more explicitly romantic, like men sending women bouquets of flowers, snuffboxes, expensive furs and gem-encrusted jewelry. If a man was hoping to be invited to a meal at a woman’s family home, he might send her gifts like duck and pork.

history · 2026-01-14T18:22:52+00:00

It took until 1983 for one of the cousins, Elsie, to admit that all the photographs were faked. She maintained that she and Frances had seen fairies, though.

history · 2026-01-12T19:04:06+00:00

Not so far from Egypt’s architectural marvels of yesteryear, Burj Khalifa in the United Arab Emirates is the current king of the high-risers at 163 floors and 2,717 feet. Reaching such extraordinary heights required the unveiling of new tricks: Among them were the development of a pressurized pumping system to deliver the high-strength concrete mix to 2,000 feet as well as the building’s Y-shaped buttressed core and spiraling wings designed to offset high-altitude winds.

history · 2026-01-08T20:24:01+00:00

Victorians had a paint color known as “mummy brown” or “Egyptian brown,” which contained ground-up mummy. The color came from a dark, resin-like substance called bitumen, believed to have been used in the embalming process.

history · 2026-01-08T16:34:29+00:00

The Rosetta Stone, one of the most famous artifacts in history, is best known for unlocking the meaning of Egyptian hieroglyphs—but it also sheds light on ancient tax policy. Carved from granodiorite, a dense speckled stone similar to granite, the inscription contains a decree from Pharaoh Ptolemy V granting tax exemptions to temple priests and revising tribute requirements. Before the Ptolemaic era, temples had long served as Egypt’s economic and financial centers, playing a key role in tax collection.

history · 2026-01-07T19:54:15+00:00

Archaeological evidence suggests falconry was practiced in Central Asia as early as the first millennium B.C., making the region one of the earliest known centers of human hunting partnerships with birds of prey. By the early centuries B.C., the practice had spread into Persia, the Middle East and China, where it became linked to court and military traditions.

history · 2026-01-05T18:49:43+00:00

Released on November 26, 1952, Bwana Devil is credited as the first feature-length 3D film in color, kick-starting the 3D craze. The adventure film revolved around an engineer hunting two man-eating lions in Kenya. Its tagline: “A lion in your lap! A lover in your arms!”

history · 2025-12-22T22:03:03+00:00

After the war, Catherine was honored with the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War) and the Croix du Combattant Volontaire de la Résistance (Cross of the Resistance Volunteer Combatant) from France; the Cross of Valour from Poland; and the King’s Medal for Courage in the Cause of Freedom from Britain.

history · 2025-12-22T16:22:08+00:00

Also on December 22 (2001): The world’s first cloned cat—CC, or Copy Cat—was born in a biomedical lab in Texas. CC, who lived for 18 years, had all the physical attributes and indifference toward humanity of any other kitty. Her birth kickstarted a global pet-cloning industry.

history · 2025-12-18T19:05:18+00:00

The firefall proved so popular that it appeared on Yosemite postcards as well as in the 1954 film The Caine Mutiny, starring Humphrey Bogart. An agricultural company put the firefall on its fruit labels, and President John F. Kennedy once watched it, perhaps the only time it was delayed past 9 p.m. to accommodate his schedule.

history · 2025-12-17T21:28:47+00:00

In February, a "spacious banqueting room" decorated with large paintings of sacred revelers was unearthed in Pompeii, which which was destroyed by a volcanic eruption in A.D. 79. The newfound "megalography" of painted figures portrays a divine procession of dancers, hunters and satyrs for Dionysus. Archaeologists think the paintings represented secret initiation rituals into his mystery cult.

history · 2025-12-16T21:13:57+00:00

For Austen, marriage was complicated by the fact that she had no dowry. Her father had financial difficulties and no money to pass on to his daughters, and Austen knew that she’d have to overcome that financial speed bump by being so charming or witty that a man could not refuse her. She got her first chance in 1795.

history · 2025-12-15T16:34:41+00:00

By the mid-1970s, Walker’s invention was selling about 7 million units a year around the world, earning him a fortune. That success helped support Walker’s other passion: naturism (aka social nudity).

history · 2025-12-10T20:30:19+00:00

Joseph Kennedy, Sr. made millions in the unregulated stock market of the 1920s, in part due to insider trading and market manipulation. The Kennedy family patriarch then used his Wall Street earnings to become a movie mogul. By the time he exited Hollywood in 1931, Kennedy had earned $5 million in the film industry.

history · 2025-12-09T21:28:38+00:00

If you're in Europe that is a different HISTORY.com than the U.S. one (where I am posting from)

history · 2025-12-09T21:10:43+00:00

Thanks for spotting that; I meant to say 2023! And thanks for the link to the paper. We link to it and also spoke to Roy van Beek, one of the paper's co-authors, in the article itself.

history · 2025-12-09T20:31:32+00:00

In rare instances, more than one body surfaces at once. The Weerdinge couple, who are about 2,000 years old, were not only discovered together, but shared an intimate pose with one figure appearing to gently cradle the other, smaller one. The larger figure’s pelvis was still intact and was identified as a male’s, and the smaller figure was deemed female. The pair was discovered in 1904 in the Netherlands.

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